


Breathing Room

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Series: Among the Trees [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Azazel (Supernatural)'s Special Children, Disabled Character, Gen, Mary Winchester Lives, Mary Winchester Raises Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester, Queer Gen, See Other Series Tags, Small Queer Kids, Young Winchesters (Supernatural), cystic fibrosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 18:32:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14118381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: Dean, Sam, and their childhood friends have their first sleepover.





	Breathing Room

The time comes for a sleepover. Long after the boys have become accustomed to spending their afternoons together in the house or the woods, Doug tugs on Sam’s sleeve and brings him physically over to Dean.

“Um. Mr. ...I mean, Dean...um...sometimes Jer and I want to sleep here, do you ever think we could sleep here?”

“I dunno, probably,” Dean asks. “We could ask my mom.”

“Before we ask your mom though… You know Jer and I, we are sick sometimes… I get PT on my back for my breathing and I have to have it and I have to have nebs all the time. Could I bring my neb here or do you think your mom would be really mad?”

“Mad?”

“Yeah. You know. Didn’t you say your dad got mad a lot? My mom gets mad a lot.”

Dean stops. Every movement of his body stops for a second and he says, “Oh.”

“I mean, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“No. It’s okay. You can tell me stuff. Look. It’s just, your mom shouldn’t be like that, to you. If she wants to get mad at other adults then okay, but you’re a kid, you’re as small as Sam.”

Doug lowers his head. “Yeah.”

“That isn’t how a person is supposed to be with their kids,” Dean says, ten going on thirty. “C’mon. You wait here and I’ll get Mama.”

“Wait! Dean! What about my PT?”

“Well, can you teach some people how to do it?” Dean asks, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to ask between two friends, or an older and a younger kid.

“Yeah. Sure!”

“Then we’ll figure out who has to do it. Doug, we won’t let you get sick, okay?”

“But you still want me over your house?”

“Hell yeah!”

Doug beams. “Okay. So, good. That’s really good. So we can ask your Mom now.”

*~*~*

The members of the Winchester-Campbell household were in some ways at their first rodeo. It had puzzled them that Doug and Jeremy had gone so long without asking to stay over. In truth, if her kids were any different from Sam and Dean, Mary might have some misgivings. But they are, and they’re intuitive and able to coordinate like no two other kids she hasn’t seen who aren’t twins, and even then….

“It’s very, very important, Sammy, that if your friends need something you come get Mama, all right? If you promise me, then of course they can stay over here.”

“Mama,” Sammy says, all seriousness and big plans, “I think that’s good because I don’t think their parents are that nice.”

Mary sighs. “Well, Sammy, sometimes adults don’t… They can make mistakes, just like when you make some mistakes writing and drawing, right?”

“Yeah. But I think their mistakes are mean.”

“Sammy, we’ll do what we can to help.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

“You’re welcome, angel.”

And so it comes to pass that the number of kids in the Winchester household doubles--even more frequently than before. One sleepover (blanket forts and popcorn and Goonies, oh my) balloons into many, many more, and they all take note of the look on Jeremy’s face that he is more grateful than any kid had a right to be, and that he never wants to leave.

Mary remembers that face, now and the times it's come before, and she asks the boys to invite their friends even when it doesn't seem like the plan at all.

She is free herself, and she’ll do what she had to to help those kids feel it, too.

She learns chest PT and teaches the very basics of it to Dean, who suddenly becomes a natural, though that isn't surprising. She lets Doug practice it on Dean’s back, too, so that Dean knows what it was supposed to feel like, and she is pretty sure she could see Doug in ten or fifteen years, doing PT on kids just like him. Even Sam learns a little bit of it, and Mary sees how Jeremy contributed in the ways he could as well.

She sends them home with full bellies and tight hugs goodbye and waits for the next time they need a little bit of extra TLC they weren’t getting at home.


End file.
